1988 Busch Tournament Had Dream Pairing

SKIP MILLER

And then it appeared the Anheuser-Busch Classic was going to give area golf fans the best match their fantasies could buy.

Curtis Strange against Fuzzy Zoeller. Quip against quicksilver all the way to the 72nd hole.

Zoeller against Strange. That's what folks wanted to see. A real Williamsburg shootout - Strange is a resident of Kingsmill; several years ago Zoeller signed up to represent Ford's Colony on the PGA Tour.

For one steamy-sweaty Saturday, July 9, 1988, golf fans got a taste of what they wanted. Plus a little extra for those who believe good guys shouldn't always take it on the chin.

It happened like this:

Dick Mast opened the 1988 Anheuser-Busch Classic with a seven-under-par 64. Two shots back was Jerry Pate. The good guy who won the U.S. Open in 1976 and spent the next six years wrecking a shoulder for more than $1 million in prize money.

Mast explained he had wandered in and out of Tour Qualifying School for several years before achieving the mental comfort zone that resulted in $100,000 seasons.

Pate explained what had happened to him since winning the Tournament Players Championship in 1982. There had been several operations to correct his left shoulder. There had been jobs as a television commentator. There was always the gnawing thought that "I went from one of the better players on the Tour to a guy who couldn't compete."

Then came a rebuilt swing and a chance to compete again. Kingsmill ws Pate's first return test.

In the wings were Zoeller and Strange. Zoeller opened with a 67. Strange carded a 68.

Friday, another warhorse, name of Peter Jacobsen, put together a six-under 65 for the second-round lead.

Mast ventured out of the comfort zone and was promptly penalized with a four-over 75. So ended his flirt with contention.

Pate remained two shots off the pace with a 68.

Strange and Zoeller swapped scores - Strange had the 67 and Zoeller the 68. They were three shots back.

But it was enough to put them the same Saturday tee time.

Word spread quickly that Strange and Zoeller were going head up. There was no such thing as getting to Kingsmill too early for this one. The gallery was going to be huge. A guy would just about have to sleep on the first tee if he wanted a place along the ropes.

The gallery that turned out would have made Arnie's Army look like a platoon. Did we say army? This one was interservice. Rocking in the James River swells offshore from the 17th green was Curtis' Strange Navy, the A-B Classic's annual armada of pleasure boats.

All week, Strange had been wearing a Kingsmill golf cap, a wildly-patterned, slapdash colored lid that definitely stuck out in a crowd.

On the first tee, Strange presented Zoeller with such a cap.

The gallery roared.

The first shot had been fired.

There was Zoeller and his hustler's instinct, trading quips with the gallery, talking his way to a two-under 69.

And there was Strange, quicksilver in his veins, blocking out the gallery and hometown yips, matching Zoeller's 69.

When the round ended, the two were where they began. Tied and still three shots back.

Let's get ready for Sunday.

While nearly everybody stayed tune to the Zoeller-Strange duel, Tom Sieckmann and Mark Wiebe were quietly working up the contention ladder.

Sieckmann opened with a 69 and then shot back-to-back 66's to slip into a three-way tie with Jacobsen and Kenny Knox after three rounds. Wiebe, who won this tournament in 1985, shot a third-round 64 to move within a stroke.

On Sunday, they had their own shootout. Sieckmann shot 69. Wiebe shot 68, picking up the stroke he needed to force a playoff.

Pate, whose first two rounds had been eight under par, matched par the last two days and finished tied for 14th. Still, he was a happy man. The $10,075 was the first golf check he had earned in more than a year.

Sieckmann won the playoff, par to bogey, on the second hole.

In victory, he said a curious thing.

"Your joy can only be measured by the depth of your sorrow," he said quietly.

Then he explained.

After graduation from Oklahoma State, and after problems securing a PGA Tour card, he went international. He played all over the world and he won.

In 1987 he returned to the PGA Qualifying School for the third time in four years.

That was the depths of his sorrow. The questions and frustrations and humility of being an international star trying to go home again.

At Kingsmill, in the shadow of the Strange-Zoeller duel, Tom Sieckmann found victory.

Now, we're getting ready for another A-B Classic. Sieckmann will be back to defend his title. Wiebe will be back because Kingsmill has been so very good to him.

Strange and Zoeller will be back, too. Maybe they'll go head up again. Maybe they'll be tied walking down the 18th fairway. Maybe it'll be the 72nd hole, the Sunday stroll.